Is it right to expand the Rugby World Cup to 24 teams?

A 24-TEAM World Cup is a great idea so long as you love your turkey shoots, your humiliations of smaller nations who are under-resourced, underplayed and underappreciated by the global game from one World Cup cycle to the next.

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TOM ENGLISH | ALAN PEAREY

If you get a kick out of the minnows getting annihilated 73-0, 76-0, 84-0 and 96-0 (as Uruguay, Romania and Namibia were this time around), then let’s have more of them. Let’s bring in Hong Kong China and Brazil and the Netherlands just to see how much embarrassment the big boys can bestow upon them.

World Rugby’s decision to expand the tournament is populist garbage – oh wow, look at how global a sport we are! – unless it’s underpinned by meaningful action to help these nations. If throwing another four lambs to the slaughter is deemed as ‘growing the game’, the game is heading in the wrong direction.